Over the past few weeks I have been attempting to do a bit of pre match trading on certain matches, mainly in premier league games.

Last night I thought the odds on Under 3.5 goals in the Chelsea V Manchester City match might shorten pre kick off. In hindsight I now believe the reason why I thought this was because in my view I thought there wouldn’t be 4 goals or more, so I wrongly assumed that 1.49 was too big and would right itself by shortening.

I have now learnt a valuable lesson that there is a whole world of difference between what I think will happen over the course of 90 minutes, and how a given market might behave in the 5 minutes pre kick off.

As a result of my serious miscalculation, when the game kicked off the price of Under 3.5 goals was at 1.51, I had put £100 on it about 10 earlier at 1.49 expecting it to shorten further and allow me to get out for a couple of quid profit.

At this stage I had decided I wasn’t leaving with a red/loss, in fact I wasn’t leaving without at least a couple of quid green – and after all nothing will happen in the first few minutes, will it!!!

How wrong was I as I watched in horror at Chelsea’s latest defensive calamity just 90 seconds into the match.

At this stage I tried to keep calm, after all £100 is a lot of my betting bank, and far more than I gamble these days, so I knew I couldn’t afford to lose it.

I didn’t expect a goal rush and I was reasonably confident that it might stay 0-1 for the rest of the first half, but at the same time I was now firmly of the opinion that I get out for a scratch trade as soon as the price goes back to 1.49.

I nervously watched as the price got down to 1.51, at this stage the match was in a bit of a lull and I thought to myself that I couldn’t see much happening here so I will leave my bet to run for another few minutes and get £90 out at about the 40 minute mark, and just leave a £10 bet to run.

30 seconds later, bang, it’s 1-1, I couldn’t believe it. Now I really am panicking, another goal now and I know I’ve got to let this bet run until about the 80 minute mark, and I know my nerves won’t handle that.

So I waited for about 5 minutes and layed the HT correct score @ 1.06 for £100, hoping for a 3rd goal. It didn’t arrive, so I spent half time planning my next move.

I knew I couldn’t risk a 3rd goal early in the 2nd half, I had to take out some insurance. So in the end I decided to lay Under 4.5 goals, in the knowledge that an early 3rd goal would see a huge price swing in that market and buy me some equity. I also knew I could still sit on Under 3.5 goals until late on, although I was well aware that after about 75 minutes a goal would really put me in a sticky spot.

After the sending off I was also quite happy as I knew Man City would hold what they had, and that’s exactly what they tried to do, and to be honest they were doing so quite comfortably until the bloody penalty decision.

That also came at the worst possible time for me, as there was no where to go with the Under 4.5 goals lay when the match goes beyond the 80th minute. A 4th goal in and around approximately the 85th minute and onwards mark would leave me with the option of hoping for a 5th goal, or having to trade out at around 1.3, which was no real use.

In the end I just had to sit on the bet and see it through to the very end, I actually ended up winning about £5 on the match, but it certainly wasn’t worth the risk or the stresses it put me through.

The morale of the story will have to be to get out of any large pre match trade, pre match. Do what it says to do on the tin, the words pre match means what it says, and if that means taking a small loss, then so be it. If I do have to red out, then my match selection has been wrong and I clearly need to improve my match selections.

Another thing I could have done last night was just traded £90 out pre kick off and just left £10 on as a bet, I know I would have made a slight loss on the £90, but I wouldn’t have exposed my bank in such a reckless way, and in the end I would have won.

Under/Over 3.5 goals is a very fast moving market and one which I believe justifies a lot more time being invested in as I can see some real opportunities with it.

Two valuable rules need to be set down first though, I need to try and judge the market on how I think the market will behave, not on what I think will happen over the full 90 minutes, and if I’m doing a pre match trade, I need to make sure all my trading money is out of the bet before a bloody ball is kicked.

2 Responses to “A near disaster trading Under/Over 3.5 goals”

Oh dear!
I really felt for you during that game and well done for getting a fiver out of it after all the stress and aggravation.
I used to trade every evening and weekend. I could have earned more if I’d been working at MacGreasies!!
Why don’t you save yourself any more stress and just bet?
I currently work the u/o 4.5 market and although the returns are unspectacular, the compounding profits are eye-watering when your bank builds.
I think football betting is 10% technique and 90% attitude.
When I was younger I read a book by Napoleon Hill (that really was his name!)and he said making big money was as easy as falling off a log. When I read it, I thought it was flippant bull**** but I now realise the significance of it all.
Just trying to help!